Posts filed under ‘audience development’
Is CRM Really a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?
No I don’t necessarily think so, but to keep mixin’ up the metaphors it is not unlike Field of Dreams with the oft-used mantra “build it and they will come“. Just because you build or buy a CRM at great expense and turn it on does not mean that “… they will come”, let alone continue to come again, more often, with increasing loyalty across the various constituent lifecycles.
As many other suggest CRM is but infomation enabled Relationship Marketing that requires equal investments in strategy, people AND technology.
The reason for my initial question is a recent blog post from Lisa Baxter of The Experience Business Customer Relationship Management: Pulling the wool over our own eyes.
Lisa, I suspect you and I are singing from the same hymnsheet (oops analogy three and counting), but I worry about your vilification of CRM at the start or am I getting the wrong end of the stick (oh oh four).
I think an essential element of a CRM in assisting Audience Development is initiating and then building an ongoing relationship, but an important part of that is trust. Trust is based on mutual respect and organisational actions and tactics must align with that as part of a sustainable long term strategy. The tactics that you mentions may be useful components, but as you suggest, on their own with out the coordinated organisational committment that builds trust each and every contact, they are just cheap tricks (and are perceived as such).
CRM like marketing is about managing an exchange of value and that means providing value for both sides, the customer and the vendor. Lisa, the examples you give do seem to be framed to sound “predatory”, but the language does not include the value that such actions may have for the customer (whether prospective, first time, recent or frequent, lapsed or refused and so-on)
Maybe our perspectives are very similar, I agree with you that maybe it is the people and strategy components at fault. A selling orientation is increasingly out of place in this day and age and push marketing is limited by its short term perspective.
I don’t disagree with your ‘platitudes’ that Relationship Marketing may deliver via a CRM: gratitude, helpfulness & empathy, inform, delight, connect and value. In fact, they sound like worthwhile values to aspire to in any initiative.
Yes, retention is the way forward. Retention in all its guises from return attendance to frequency recency and monetary value to upselling, cross-selling and value adds and so-on. But it is a two-way exchange of value that ensures longer term success.
2 May, 2012 at 4:46 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 2 comments
Does Social Media have a role in CRM?
I don’t know, what do you think?
I was asked by a client the other day whether Social Media should have been documented more in a CRM specification. I said that I had presumed so, but when I tried to define tasks or information requirements that overlapped CRM to Social Media a short paragraph seemed to do the job.
I am not diminishing the value of Social Media. But Social Media is about a conversation and the extension of Customer Relationship Management is not Customer Conversation Management.
Listening is more important than talking, preaching or promoting. The latter does not encourage or enhance engagement, listening does.
So back to CRM. I guess you could record a customer’s FB page, twitter account, Linked in page and so-on. But that is just like recording phone numbers, it does not mean you are or will listen to them or learn from them what interests them, excites them, annoys them, even what they think about you and what you do.
I think the missing link is legwork. Sorry for the mixed analogies, but the legwork of listening is essential, whether automated or manual. Listening to Social Media channels may result in learning and provide the trigger for activity. That trigger may be a complaint, compliment, indication of a prospect or a warning of a defector (maybe lapsing subscriber is less inflamatory). Various Social media channels need to be monitored for triggers and when a trigger is identified, a CRM may then assist in managing the customer incident, communication, activity, induction, loyalty, upgrade, re-attraction and other stages of an ongoing, developing and evolving relationship.
Therein lies the challenge, identifying triggers by the action of listening to the multitude of conversations. A CRM can record Social Media identifiers, integration will eventually enable the monitoring of the social media channels for individuals. However, intelligence will be required to be added to that listening to accurately identify triggers for the proactive (even just reactive) management of the relationship.
Then we get to the issue of privacy … oh boy – let’s leave that for another day.
3 April, 2012 at 1:12 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 3 comments
Super Subscribers: Saving the Day, Seeding a Loyalty Initiative
An instructive case study of soliciting donors from subscribers at 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle from TRG Arts.
Facing a funding shortfall in 2009/10, 2010/11 subscriber were approached to become “Super Subscribers” and make a donation to “enhance their theatre-going experience“.
This is explained as follows: “Instead of requesting help for the organization, the letter invited patrons to enhance their theater experience with a tax-deductible gift that included experiential benefits: a backstage tour, a one-time guest pass to the major donor lounge, and a show poster of the subscriber’s choice from the upcoming season. Their gift would also support scholarships for the 5th‘s upcoming summer camps, but the primary focus of the ask was on the subscriber’s experience.“
40% of donations came in response to just the direct mail campaign without the need for any follow up calls.
The campaign brought in 453 gifts and a total of $51,189 at a 10% cost-of-sale and analysis by TRG was very interesting:
- “Most Super Subscribers were relatively new to subscribing. 65% included first timers, subscribers of five or fewer years, or patrons returning after letting their subscription lapse.
- Super Subscribers were primarily new donors. 70% had no previous giving history; 30% were lapsed donors.
- Super Subscribers were twice as generous. The campaign’s average gift size was $113, more than double 5th Avenue prior new gift average of $53.73.”
24 January, 2012 at 7:50 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
“A Good Decision is Based on Knowledge, Not on Numbers” – Plato 400BC-ish
Ticketmaster has hired “data guru” John Carnahan to head up it’s new Data Science group as the executive vice president of data science and engineering.
Ticketmaster looks inward to mine for gold, hires data science expert (exclusive)
I am sorry, but is it just me? A ticket is a means to an end. There is no demand for a ticket per se, there is a demand to attend an event that a ticket is a licence for and a seat – a location from which to experience the event.
Carnahan says “we don’t know what the value of a seat means to a user,”
“His goal for the Data Science group is to dig through Ticketmaster transaction data to understand the value of a ticket,“
Good luck with that …
20 January, 2012 at 12:56 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Audience Development may yet, not be, a “non-job”?
A colleague, Jerry Yoshitomi of MeaningMatters, put me on to this article. I find this quite exciting for the future of Audience Development and the development of meaningful consumer models – Voter data crucial to Romney’s victory
No, I am not going to bore you with a regurgitation of the seemingly endless US election process 
I am, however going to wax lyrical about the use of data to segment prospects and inform relationship marketing.
“A central factor in Mitt Romney’s impressive win in New Hampshire was a sophisticated and relentless voter contact program that locked in supporters early and turned them out to the polls.“
Romney’s team “mined reams of consumer information — from the number of purchases voters made at Williams-Sonoma to their range of financial investments — to build a model that would allow them to find and identify potential supporters.“
They used data to prioritise prospects and then implemented an ongoing structured program of communication developed a loyal core.
“Romney operatives expanded a list of 5,000 solid supporters in New Hampshire from his 2008 campaign to more than 25,000 whom they believed they could rely … while also turning out with friends, relatives and colleagues.“
Just imagine if we had audiences on which we could rely and they turned out with friends, relatives and colleagues. Although I am not sure that we would aspire to this approach in the arts?
“In the end, the Romney team credited its successes to persistence — finding those undecided voters leaning their way and just inundating them,” said Romney’s New Hampshire director, Jason McBride.
Let’s hope that the arts can learn from this constituent development and use similar data mining tools for substantive audience development. Maybe we can then put to bed the accusations of nay-sayers like the recalcitrant Eric Pickles who variously called audience development an “non-job” or a “pointless post”.
13 January, 2012 at 10:54 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
What do you reckon about the likely impact of these Marketing Trends on CRM in 2012?
Here are some more predictions of marketing trends that will impact CRM in 2012 according to Judith Aquino of CRM.COM in 5 Hot Marketing Trends (not surprisingly, mobile is at the top):
- Mobile Marketing
- QR Codes
- Voice Of Customer (VOC) Monitoring
- Social Media Marketing
- Video
Finally, she suggests an additional trend with the ‘news’ that Groupon and Daily Deals sites have fallen to earth and are no longer seen as the ‘answer’. Surely, you would have to suggest that they were only ever good for pissing of existing and loyal customers with unfocussed discounts in the guise of prospecting for new customers – BUT without gaining any personal details with which to build an ongoing relationship with those new prospects?
2 January, 2012 at 5:47 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
More transparency added to unfair ADD ON FEES
Fee Transparency = “a compromise to freedom of speech“
Oh pullease … my ass
Add on fees for “convenience” et al are just that .. convenient ways to squeeze more out of the consumer.
Here is a good comparison of airlines and concert tickets. They are both interested in yield management and revenue maximisation, but responsible behaviour comes down to one thing: … TRANSPARENCY
The High Price of Add-on Online Fees
28 December, 2011 at 12:32 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Isn’t it time you looked at integrating ticketing on Facebook?
Rob Martin, Digital Marketing Manager at The Lowry, Salford explains the implementation of Facebook ticketing at their venue as reported on the AMA COMMONS. Of note is the fact that at a cost of just £500 to integrate the new service, it paid for itself in the first month!
According to Rob “On average we sell around 50% of our tickets online, with the percentages rising for music and comedy.” Google Analytics revealed how important their Facebook page was for referring traffic, so logically they explored the option of selling tickets directly from Facebook.
“Live performances and ticket inventory taken from the Box office system into the … CMS now allows the website to share that information with Facebook users. The Facebook Events Page is a web application that … retrieves the current event information from the website via an exposed web service.“
Read more about the solution that paid for itself in a month: Lowry’s portrait of a Facebook ticketing operation
29 November, 2011 at 9:38 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 4 comments
Things database marketers can learn from farming …
A nice analogy from Ricky Bryan in his blog mARTsketing, Things database marketers can learn from farming.
The topics Ricky addresses make a lot of sense:
- Divide your database into paddocks
- Not all paddocks are the same
- Rotate your crops
- Don’t over crop the one paddock
- Tend to your paddocks
- Do your maintenance – mend fences so the sheep don’t escape.
- Sow a test crop
- Talk to your neighbours – what are they doing?
Of course the term ‘yield’ makes an appearance, but not without relevance.
Ricky’s final tip: “So if you aren’t getting the best out of your database, … go and have a yarn with a farmer. You could do a lot worse!“
27 November, 2011 at 3:59 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Will online tools really turn fans into promoters?
FanFueled is one such ‘promoter management tool’. The “ticketing platform tracks the transactional impact of fan sharing–and lets fans earn rebates on their service fee if their promotional activities yield additional ticket sales.“
“According to Founder and CEO Anderson Bell, the sharing rate for FanFueled events is 20% — 1 in 5 ticket buyers share information with their peers — which is double the sharing rate for a ticketing platform such as Eventbrite.“
Social Event Ticketing Platform Rewards Fans for Influencing Sales
25 November, 2011 at 11:35 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
